The F&B Pic Programmer

Overview

Briefly: We've designed our own tools for PIC development. This includes our own PIC programming hardware, and an integrated PIC assembler/code downloader.

Why we do this: We like control over our development tools. We build cross-platform tools in Java that run on Mac, PC, and Linux. Our own PIC programmer costs $20 in parts and replaces Microchip's official $200 device. It's a fun learning experience to build your own programmer, and they're cheap enough that we can have as many as we like.

PIC Assembler/Programmer Software

Assemble your PIC programs and burn code using our integrated assembler/programmer software utility, written in Java. It works on Mac, PC, and Linux (and probably most other platforms as well). All you need is a serial port for connecting to our PIC Programmer Board.

Our software can load and save the standard "hex" files produced by other PIC development tools (assemblers and C compilers). See our documentation/download page for the F&B PIC Assembler/Programmer software.

PIC Programmer Hardware

We've designed a simple but powerful PIC Programmer Board that can be built with less than $20 worth of parts. It's run off a serial line so it can be used with a Mac or a Linux box. It supports both regular "insert the chip and program it" mode and an in-circuit programming feature.

See documentation for the F&B PIC Programmer Board.

Documentation

It may seem nutty to re-invent assemblers. We do it to provide consistency across our development environments (which span multiple processors) and because our dev environments are typically more versatile than the “official” ones.

Our PIC assembly syntax is easy to parse (both for computers and people), and uses conventional opcode names rather than Microchip's odd ones. Learn about our PIC programming.